How the Los Angeles Cocktail Scene Is Different From Other Cities'

**With the cocktail craze having spread to every corner of the country, and bartenders flying from city to city to compete against one other, we wondered: Is there any regionality left in the noble art of the tipple? After all, when you can get an authentic Tiki drink at Manhattan's Death & Co. in midwinter, or order a Queens Park Swizzle in Seattle with impunity, you might find yourself needing Foursquare to remember where you are.

And yet certain cocktail cultures still maintain some individuality, whether by fortune or design. Take Los Angeles. Though the city was slow to emerge from the dark ages of the Appletini, it's also less concerned with following new traditions. Perhaps it's always been that way, considering it once created nearly the only vodka-based cocktail respected by most mixologists, the Moscow Mule.

"There's a wild-card element," says Paul Sanguinetti, the beverage director of Ray's and Stark Bar. "We don't care what anyone else thinks as long as what we're doing is good, and fun, and progressive." Opinions differ on the significance of L.A.'s distinctions, and granted, both the bars and the drinkers are as varied as anywhere (there's still plenty of "vodka soda" types, and the Old Fashioneds are still old-fashioned). But after polling nearly a dozen leading bartenders and mixologists, we've found certain aspects to be undeniable:

Ingredients

"Year-round produce, that's a huge part of who we are," says The Spare Room's bar manager, Naomi Schimek, a notion echoed by virtually everyone. "We can make a specific drink with a specific pepper," says Soho House creative bar directorChris Ojeda. "You try to take it to other cities and...I've found it difficult to recreate it."

Or you might just be more limited, as The Roger Room's Damian Windsor points out: "At PDT in New York, they do a rhubarb margarita, but they can only do it when they can get fresh rhubarb." By comparison, many L.A. bars grow ingredients themselves--that may not be entirely unique to Southern California, but bars loaded down with herbs, berries, and buds are increasingly commonplace. Says Schimek, "I can just go around my neighborhood and pick flowers and that will go into the menu that night."

Rule-breaking

"In L.A., people want to explore," says Ojeda, "and people will try anything." While Windsor bemoans it, Sanguinetti takes pride not only in uncommon flavor profiles but in the irreverent names that follow, like Don't Worry I'm on the Dill, You Can Rum Inside Me. "I did a drink with pea tendrils and called it the 'R.Kelly,'" he says. "Julian Cox [Comme Ca] created an apple-banana daquiri-ish drink called 'The Banana Hammock.'"

More seriously, Schimek reasons, "We have such a diverse, accessible ethnic food culture, and that translates to the drinks." On her current menu, she points to a cocktail using Turkish urfa biber peppers and housemade caramel. And taking the availability of produce one step beyond, self-proclaimed "cocktail chef" Matthew Biancaniello has built a bar program at Cliff's Edge in Silver Lake driven by foraged ingredients like stinging nettles, mugwort, and toyon berries. Nor is he completely alone: following the inspiration of Vincenzo Marianello (Providence), Cox and Dave Kupchinsky (Eveleigh), Stark Bar also gets weekly forager deliveries.

Presentation

"I was just in New York," says Marcos Tello of Tello Demarest Liquid Assets, a drinks consultancy, "and the drinks are amazing, but they're more straightforward. In L.A., we're showmen: you drink with your eyes first, with garnishes, with glassware, with presentation." Both Schimek and Sanguinetti admit, "We like to be a little showy," the latter adding, "Bright colors, aromatic peels, bitters on crushed ice, all of the above."

Eric Alperin, proprietor of The Varnish, has taken that detail to the extent of co-creating a side business supplying sculptor-quality ice to all the bars within the 213 Nightlife group run by his partner Cedd Moses. "People take all the details here very seriously," he says.

Not that the city is one big flair bar. "We can be minimalist and refined, too," says Sanguinetti. Still, says Windsor, "We have a couple at the Roger Room that people order just because they know the presentation."

Attitude

If the point hasn't already been implied, despite a geographically and culturally diverse territory, L.A.'s cocktail makers are driven more by community than by competition, an environment (fostered by the industry social group The Sporting Life) that's definitely influenced the nature of bars there. "Tight knit" is the phrase oft repeated. "At 1886, we're very proud to offer other bartenders' drinks that we can recreate," Tello says of one Pasadena bar he oversees--where the menu will even credit the originator. "And we actually send patrons to other bars." Similarly, Ojeda notes seeing cocktails from The Varnish offered at a beer bar in Venice Beach. "When Varnish won Best American Cocktail Bar award at Tales of the Cocktail this past year," Sanguinetti recalls, "we all crowded in and celebrated together."

Chris Ojeda's Picante de la Casa

"Here's a cocktail that I created for Soho House, first in L.A., then globally," says Ojeda. "My family always grew herbs and peppers in our gardens, so this cocktail was one I had to create."

Slightly press the chile to release its flavor, but be careful: if you muddle too much it will increase the spice. Add in the cilantro and the remaining liquid ingredients starting with lime, agave, and tequila. Add ice, shake, and strain into a rocks glass filled with ice.

Garnish with the very top of the pepper.

Naomi Schimek's Mount Lee

"In 1920s Hollywood," says Schimek, "so many people would go up in the hills below the Hollywoodland sign in wintertime to gather California Holly branches adorned with berries for Christmas decoration that the shrubs were nearly wiped out completely. The city had to enact a law forbidding it in order to protect them. When I gather, I always make sure to collect from several locations in order to leave full, healthy shrubs.

"Berries are gathered in winter, and can be used to make a beautiful syrup. I apply heat to them and make a reduction, then add over-proof neutral grain spirit and age it into a liqueur. The flowers are available in mid-spring and can be used to decorate the drink. Do not use the leaves in the drink--they are bad for you."